Pamela Merritt blogs as Shark-Fu at AngryBlackBitch.com. Merritt studied Anthropology at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and Brandeis University. Merritt is the Communications Director for Progress Missouri and was a founding member of the Trust Black Women Partnership. She has been a featured contributor on National Public Radio (NPR), and her writing has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, Guardian UK, and Salon. In 2008 AngryBlackBitch.com was named one of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs by the Guardian UK. In 2013, Planned Parenthood Federation of America honored AngryBlackBitch.com with a Maggie Award for Community/Personal Blog.

The number of women in prison is growing at a staggering rate. We must include the challenges and issues incarcerated women face to reproductive health care access as we advocate for reproductive justice for all.

On the front lines healthcare providers and volunteers meet young women who learn prevention post-infection, who explore contraceptive options after a pregnancy and who are growing up in a culture where sophisticated media outlets sell sex as power.

How would AIDS service organizations in American cities respond if they had to sign the anti-prostitution pledge required of PEPFAR grantees? What impact would that pledge have on Americans at risk for HIV infection?

Menopause is a natural stage of a woman’s reproductive life, a condition women go through as they grow older. Knowing the facts and having resources will help women prepare for, rather than dread, that change.

There’s a whole lot of inaccuracy wrapped up in the so-called pharmacy protection bill being considered in Missouri. The bill not only seeks to protect pharmacies from legal action resulting from the refusal to sell a drug they can’t sell — it also reclassifies emergency contraception as an abortifacient.

Google “black genocide” and a multitude of web sites indicting Planned Parenthood and other health providers for perpetrating genocide on black people fill the computer screen. It’s tempting to scoff at such claims as the delusional ranting of the lunatic fringe, but that wouldn’t be wise.